As you’re looking at getting yourself insurance for your personal training business, it can be easy to focus on one prominent category almost every small business owner worries over - cost. While cost is an important factor, it should never be the only factor in your decision to go with one carrier over another.

In today’s series, we’ll show you exactly what to look for in a personal trainer liability insurance program to make sure you get a powerful one-two combo with great coverage for your career, at a great price for your bottom line.

Do - Look Closely at the Liability Limits

One of the first stops on your journey into the wide world of personal trainer insurance should be with the policy’s limits. An insurance limit is the maximum amount your policy pays for a given claim and for all claims total. The two limits you’ll see with a personal trainer insurance policy include “per occurrence” and “individual annual aggregate”. 

• Per occurrence means for a given claim event. For example, with IFG, you have $1 million per occurrence so for each claim that you file, you have all the way up to $1 million in coverage per the provisions of the policy. 
• Individual annual aggregate is the total amount the policy will pay in a given year, combining the total of all claims together. IFG includes a $3 million individual annual aggregate with our personal trainer liability insurance, so members get up to $3 million in total for all of the claims they might have in a year. A really important note is that not all personal trainer insurance programs out there do an individual aggregate. Some policies will be a shared annual aggregate, meaning that others in your insurance group might take away from the total limit available to you if they happen to have claims as well.

It can be easy to see a coverage limit in the millions of dollars and think that is far and above anything you might face as a personal trainer. Unfortunately, lawsuits, even the completely frivolous ones, can be incredibly costly to defend against. A client may level that their medical bills, lost wages, and a host of other expenses are all your responsibility and file suit to collect. With an IFG personal trainer insurance policy, the costs of the claim and even legal defense fees are all covered.

Do - Consider the Services Covered by the Policy

This one can sometimes be tricky with the different personal trainer insurance programs out there because the information is not always prominently published with the plans. When you Google “best personal trainer insurance” and browse the results, pay close attention to which programs provide a full listing of the services that are covered under the provision of your policy. You might have great limits but if the covered services are only a limited few, you risk providing a service that isn’t covered under the terms of the policy or else being restricted in the number of workout routines you can provide. 

Insure Fitness went a different route because we know that fitness training varies incredibly from client-to-client. You put together the best combination of routines and worrying over whether a given workout program is covered by your personal trainer insurance isn’t something that should hold you back from making great progress with the client. That’s why we provide coverage for literally hundreds of different fitness, health, and wellness services. Everything from Pilates, to SilverSneakers®, HIIT, and Tai Chi are all covered under one, comprehensive insurance program.

Do - Check Out the Extra Benefits that Come with the Program

Any personal trainer liability insurance worth anything will have general and professional liability coverage included with the policy. These are the basics and, in reality, the majority of the claims covered for personal trainers fall under one of these two categories. However, the real benefit of a policy comes with providing coverage with other common areas that create potential liabilities for fitness professionals. 

Here’s a run-down of other coverages that help provide 360 degrees of protection for today’s professionals: 

• Product liability - in today’s environment, keeping your equipment clean between sessions has never been more important. As you take the necessary steps to sanitize equipment and gear, you may inadvertently be using a product that your client has a reaction to. An adverse allergic reaction can easily result in mountains of medical bills for treatment. The client may assert that you are responsible and level a claim against you. With IFG, you get up to $1 million in product liability coverage included.
• Rental damage coverage - when you are renting space to provide fitness instruction, you have potential liability if any damages were to occur to the owner’s space while you are occupying it. If a weight slips out of your client’s hand and damages the rental space, you can be held liable to pay for the repairs. Knowing this sucks but is all-too-real, our insurance program provides $100,000 in rental damage coverage to cover any necessary repairs.
• Stolen equipment coverage - personal trainers use all manner of different equipment to provide a great session and these “tools of the trade” are some of your best assets. So when these assets are stolen in a robbery by force, the resulting loss of use can be a huge hit to your business. That’s why we include up to $1,000 in coverage for stolen equipment with a $250 deductible.
• Identity Protection Plan - today’s digital society means there’s risks everywhere for having your identity compromised. If that happens, with a policy from IFG you get up to $25,000 in identity restoration services to help get things back to normal.

While it isn’t an additional coverage option, one other insurance program benefit to look for is occurrence form policies. Occurrence form says that if a claim event happens while your policy is active, you can file a claim, even if your policy has already expired. Conversely, a claims made policy says that claims have to be filed while the policy is active for them to be considered. This is a really important distinction that can mean the difference between having full coverage vs having no coverage for a given claim event.

Do - Compare Personal Trainer Insurance Programs

This may seem basic, but it can be pretty frustrating to click from one website to another and then back again to compare the different personal trainer insurance programs. Being confident in our offerings and wanting to make it easy to see all of this information in one place, we went ahead and published the key elements of our policy and put these side-by-side with the leading competitors in personal trainer insurance so you have everything you need to make the best decision for your unique situation.

Don’t - Focus Your Entire Search Based on Lowest Price

Insurance programs do a really good job of putting their best foot forward on their websites and often the plan’s price is in huge font, bolded, front and center. This makes it kind of hard to look past but price alone should never be the single deciding factor in your decision. The most important reason for this is that many programs have different fees that are added to that advertised rate. 

Membership fees, rates that vary by state, and fees for adding additional services can all add up quickly. Always make sure you know the full and final cost of the plan before pulling the trigger. With IFG, we offer some of the stoutest insurance coverage available all at one, low annual rate, so our members know exactly what they’re getting and for how much.

Don’t - Fail to Get Enough Coverage For Your Career

It can be really tempting to get a “bare bones” insurance plan with small limits and limited coverage options but this may be more trouble than it’s worth. With a single claim easily running into the millions of dollars, it is vital that you have adequate coverage from your insurance provider. If not, any shortfall that your insurance doesn’t cover will be your responsibility.

Don’t - Fail to Consider Your Current AND Future Needs

Get honest with where your career is and where you want it to be. This helps you have a benchmark to work towards and can also help you decide between insurance plans. IFG includes a provision in all of our personal trainer insurance policies called portability. Portability says that it doesn't matter where you provide services or how you provide services (these often change over time after all), your insurance policy will follow you. If you leave one gym and go to another, if you move states, or you switch the workout programs you offer, your insurance policy will remain in full effect for the entirety of the term. 

Getting the Right Personal Trainer Liability Insurance For Protecting Your Career

Although we work hard to make buying personal trainer insurance online really easy, we know insurance can be a bear to understand. When you have questions, we have fully licensed agents available to walk you through the entire policy and answer any of your questions. Contact our team now to get started.